Shorter day today but it felt a bit hillier and we were slower after yesterday’s marathon!
We had a very nice dinner in town last night – the guy who owns the chambre d’hote that we are staying in also owns one of the restaurants (maybe more!) and we ate there. Breakfast was also beautiful but unfortunately low on protein so we ran out of gas a bit during the day.
We set off just before a quarter to 9, a bit late but we only had 14 to 15 kms to do so we weren’t too worried. After a short sharp up hill out of Moncuq we were back up on the limestone ridge, which took us past the Chateau de Charry (see the photo of the gates), which looked like a hunting lodge – we were again coming across hunting reserves and it was in one of them.
A bit further on to the little village of Rouillac, which had the only chair we saw all day, before dropping down to the valley floor for a bit before climbing once again to the village of Montlauzun. We thought we’d stop there for a break but the trail veered downhill just before the summit and the church that sat on it, so we didn’t climb the last bit up – we thought we’d save our legs but we regretted it later on when we needed a break.
Down again from Montlauzun then up to another ridge between a couple of very picturesque valleys. The ridge was mostly oak forest, which again have been very common the last few days – there is a lot of advertising for the truffle industry around here, presumably because the oak forests support the growth of truffles.
The trail down from the ridge was pretty tough, we’d been going without break for over three hours by then so pretty leg weary. We spotted Lauzerte as we broke out from the forest: we knew it was a big climb up into the town and it did not disappoint – we were both balls of sweat when we finally made it to the top!
It’s a bit of a funny set up tonight – we are staying in a fairly nice hotel but it is around 4km out of Lauzerte (there’s a picture of Lauzerte from the hotel after we got there), which is ok but it’s 4km away from the trail, so no way we were going to walk it. We had a lovely lunch in the beautiful town of Lauzerte while we waited for the tourist office to open again and then used them to order a taxi to take us to the hotel and arranged pickup again tomorrow morning. All a bit confusing (taxis are not very common around here) – we had to wait an hour for the taxi – but I suppose the company that booked accommodation for us couldn’t find anything suitable in the town😀.
15km today with no break to take us to 398km in total – definitely past half way now!
steelewalking 